- Henderson Hospital hiring to fill hundreds of vacant positions (reviewjournal.com)
Henderson Hospital is hiring this month to fill hundreds of vacant positions as it prepares for its planned fall debut...The hospital has posted 240 open positions and is expected to add more...The 142-bed Valley Health System property is to debut on or near Oct. 31 in Union Village, a developing health, recreational and residential complex at Galleria Drive and U.S. Highway 95...Henderson Hospital, which has filled about 40 positions so far, is seeking nurses for departments including surgical services, women’s services and the emergency department at job fairs this month, according to a news release...
- Merck to cut 360 R&D jobs, close one facility, and expand elsewhere (statnews.com)
As the center of gravity shifts in the life sciences, Merck is reorganizing its R&D teams by closing one facility, eliminating about 360 jobs from three sites, and transferring other employees to a pair of new facilities that are slated to open on opposite sides of the country...planned changes affect drug discovery, preclinical, and early development work. As a result, the company is closing a facility in North Wales, Pa...Merck is cutting jobs in Kenilworth and Rahway, N.J... less than 10 percent of roughly 3,600 people in early-stage R&D work at these three locations will lose their jobs...Merck later this year expects to open new labs at its Cambridge, Mass., location, which will focus on emerging sciences, including the role of the microbiome in disease. The company also plans to open a new research site in the San Francisco Bay area to focus on cardiometabolic disease and oncology...
- Viagra Price Drops 50% as Drug Faces Competition (247wallst.com)
Viagra, the wildly successful erectile dysfunction pill, faces challenges from a generic version that will launch next year, and direct competitors Levitra and Cialis. In the face of these, Viagra has started a promotion that offers 50% off a patient’s next three prescriptions...The offer does come with some fine print: home delivery ...In March, the mammoth generic drug company Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. got approval to market a generic version of Viagra. Teva already had FDA approval of its product. Due to a deal between Pfizer Inc. and Teva, the product will not come on market until the end of 2017. That leaves only 18 months for Pfizer to sell Viagra without generic competition. After that, it faces the Teva drug, which almost certainly will have a lower price.
- Infection experts warn of more U.S. superbug cases in coming months (reuters.com)
After two confirmed U.S. cases of a superbug that thwarts a last-resort antibiotic, infectious disease experts say they expect more cases in coming months because the bacterial gene (mcr-1) behind it is likely far more widespread than previously believed...Army scientists...reported finding E. coli bacteria that harbor a gene which renders the antibiotic colistin useless...The mcr-1 superbug has been identified over the past six months in farm animals and people in about 20 countries...Health officials fear the mcr-1 gene, carried by a highly mobile piece of DNA called a plasmid, will soon be found in bacteria already resistant to all or virtually all other types of antibiotics, potentially making infections untreatable...Within the next two to three years, it's going to be fairly routine for infections to occur in the United States for which we have no (effective) drugs available...mcr-1 will find its way into carbapenem-resistant bacteria…the resulting virtually impervious bacterium would likely spread slowly inside the United States because CRE themselves are not yet widespread in the country, giving drugmakers some time to create new antibiotics...
- How Uber will Redefine Healthcare (realclearhealth.com)
I’ll respectfully disagree: Healthcare "Ubers" are already proliferating and will ultimately reshape 21st-century medicine. The more aspects of healthcare we can shift from relationship to transaction, the better life will be for patients and doctors alike..."Uber for X, Y or Z" means "making something easy and convenient." But Uber is also about safety, reliability, and civility...Uber’s true essence is this: It accumulates a vast amount of information on the micro-details of cities; overlays that information with real-time data on prospective drivers, riders, and road conditions; reduces staggeringly complex decision trees to algorithms; and instantly presents drivers with a manageable number of highly intuitive options. It thus obliterates the learning curves and fixed costs that such information previously demanded...Uber establishes, digitizes, and stores relationships to make transactions possible...To shift some (not all) of healthcare from relationship to transaction, we’ll have to imitate what Uber did: Accumulate vast databases of population health care information. Develop better and more comprehensive telemetry for real-time tracking. Apply artificial intelligence to discern patterns no intuitive physician can see and to narrow down treatment options. And package this information for instant comprehension by patients and providers...some aspects of healthcare will be impervious to Uber-like innovation...As we convert more and more of medicine to transactions—and we will—patients will find it easier to tend to their health, and doctors will find themselves freer to focus on those areas where relationships are truly irreplaceable...
- Obama Declares ACA Success in JAMA, Calls for Taking Steps to Reduce Drug Costs (ajmc.com)United States Health Care ReformProgress to Date and Next Steps (jama.jamanetwork.com)
President Barack Obama today declared in a special issue of JAMA that the Affordable Care Act has worked, both by driving down the share of Americans without health coverage and by "transforming healthcare payment systems," that are improving quality and reining in spending...The president’s article, "United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Next Steps," highlights what he sees as the achievements of the signature law often called "Obamacare," while calling for more work to cut prescription drug prices and fill gaps where market competition is lacking, perhaps with a "public option."..."Americans can now count on access to health coverage throughout their lives, and the federal government has an array of tools to bring the rise of healthcare costs under control," Obama writes. "However, the work toward a high-quality, affordable healthcare system is not over."
- Advocates hope shaming drugmakers discourages price spikes (finance.yahoo.com)California Senate Bill 1010 (openstates.org)
Frustrated by the rising cost of prescription drugs, California health advocates hope sunlight and a dose of shame will discourage drugmakers from raising their prices too quickly or introducing new medications at prices that break the bank...They're promoting legislation that would require drugmakers to provide advance notice before making big price increases. Pharmaceutical companies have come out in force against the measure, warning it would lead to dangerous drug shortages...California's SB1010 would require pharmaceutical companies to provide advance notice to drug purchasers before increasing the price of a drug by 10 percent or $10,000 a year. For generics, the threshold is $100 a month or 25 percent. Insurance companies would be required to report data on drug prices to state regulators, including the portion of premiums attributable to pharmaceuticals...Proponents hope the advance notice will give governments, insurers and pharmacy benefit managers a chance to negotiate...But drugmakers warn it could create regional shortages of some drugs if large pharmacy chains or distributors horde medications to beat the price increase. That would create an environment for speculators to drive prices up, not down.
- Diabetes sales rocket toward $60B, with Novo and Lilly’s GLP-1s first in line for growth (fiercepharma.com)
Two sides of one coin will keep diabetes drug sales growing--big time--through 2025. The disease is growing fast around the world, and treatment arbiters advise a more aggressive approach to blood-sugar control...Combine those two drivers, and diabetes will account for almost $60 billion in 2025 sales across 9 major global markets, GlobalData analysts say in a recent report...But this rising tide of sales won’t lift all treatments equally...Best positioned for growth? GLP-1 drugs, they say, which are poised to grow by 12.4% annually through the next decade...Right now, only a small number of patients are actually hitting blood glucose targets of 7% to 7.5% A1C levels...Doctors are pushing harder to hit those goals, so the number of people needing a second or third add-on drug will mushroom over the next 10 years. "[W]e’ll treat these people fairly aggressively" to get to those A1C levels..."[W]e are not going to tolerate people after 8.5% and 9% like we used to."...despite public health campaigns and awareness campaigns, people will "continue to overeat and under-exercise and they are going to see their weight continue to go up, and therefore their need for more medications will go up with it,"...
- This Week in Managed Care: July 9, 2016 (ajmc.com)
Justin Gallagher, associate publisher of The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network
- Painkiller panel drops experts linked to pharmaceutical industry (financialexpress.com)
One of the experts, Dr. Gregory Terman, said he was dismissed Tuesday afternoon by phone. He said he was told the decision was made because his nonprofit group, the American Pain Society, receives funding from drugmakers...A group advising the Food and Drug Administration on medical issues abruptly dropped four experts from a panel on prescription painkillers after concerns emerged about apparent ties to the pharmaceutical industry...Federal advisers are supposed to be vetted for financial ties that can influence their judgment. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon sent a letter Friday to the academies’ leadership noting that two of the panel nominees had also served in professional societies that receive funding from drugmakers. Wyden has protested industry influence on federal expert panels before.